Review: Hired by the Cowboy by Donna Alward

Reviewed by Shelly

This is a new to me author, but the blurb was too angsty for me to pass on. Single and pregnant, Alexis Grayson is having a terrible day. After a shopping trip to get her prenatal vitamins, she’s on the sidewalk when she starts feeling faint. Thank goodness that Connor Madsen is there and still knows how to treat a woman, much less one in distress. After a short conversation and some intuition, Connor finds out that Alexis is pregnant and they go their separate ways. Connor has problems of his own. His ranch and way of life are in jeopardy. The only way that he can afford to stay afloat is by dipping into his trust fund money and as he’s not only enough at 30, his only way around that is to get married. I’m a fan of the ‘married before falling in love’ theme.

This is a pretty short novel, not quite novella status but short none-the-less. Both of the characters were actually very likeable but I wanted to know so much more about them. Alexis’s past is touched on a little bit but it was more of an obligatory drive-by on why she was alone. Not the feeling of loneliness as much as the circumstance surrounding the cause. But at 23, I gave her credit because she didn’t use her sorrow filled past as the reason for any bad behavior. I was really curious about the boy who got her pregnant, though, and the circumstance around that – surprisingly Connor wasn’t as curious as I expected that he probably should have been.

Connor, while a nice guy, I thought he came off a bit flat. Like Alexis, his parents are gone and that should have provided quite a bit of commonality, but I didn’t think enough was focused on their mutual loneliness for family and someone to call their own.

I like heroes that are working men (cowboys, military, etc) and so I expected to experience the land with him. I didn’t get that so much, but he was kind and nice to Alexis. No ranch hands though – bummer. There’s Connor’s grandmother, who I really liked – she’s pleasantly feisty.

Overall, this was a good read. If you’re in the mood for a sweet romance between a girl and a boy who marry for all the wrong reasons but still manage to fall in love, this is a good choice.